Tag Archives: Doc’s Cafe

Friday Flashback #387

Posted on February 23, 2024 | 12 comments

It may be hard to remember. And newcomers have no clue.

But the current look of Riverside Avenue, in the heart of Saugatuck, is less than 15 years old.

The redevelopment was not without controversy.

The block containing DeRosa’s restaurant, Westport Florists, Riverside Barber and Gault was demolished. So too was the building across the street, which housed a salon and restaurant, and a nearby former garage that was Doc’s Café.

Today, this is the block with The Whelk and an ice cream shop.

There have been changes in the past 15 years. The first butcher shop moved across the street; after various iterations, it’s now Saugatuck Provisions, part of Match Burger Lobster.

Saugatuck Sweets is gone. It will be replaced soon by an ice cream shop operated by Kneads Bakery across the street — which itself took over from Garelick & Herbs.

One kayak rental shop has come and gone. Another moved in.

Doc’s Café was a favorite coffee shop.

Westport has welcomed thousands of newcomers since the early 2010s. They have no memory of the “old” Saugatuck — which itself was only the latest incarnation of an area that was the first commercial center of Westport, in the mid-1800s, then became a thriving Italian neighborhood that gave our town so much of its character and history.

More change may come soon to Saugatuck. Meanwhile, this was the scene that Peter Barlow saw — and was surprised by — when he visited the town he grew up in, 14 long (and short) years ago:

Riverside Avenue, under construction in 2010. (Photo/Peter Barlow)

(“06880” chronicles the changes in Westport — in real time, and in this regular Friday feature. Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)

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Posted in Friday Flashback, Local business, Restaurants, Saugatuck

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Nothin’ But…

Posted on January 31, 2016 | 9 comments

In 2008, Jerri Graham was not happy with snack bars. The ones on the market lacked the taste, texture and ingredients she wanted to eat — or feed her family.

So the Westport woman created her own. Her “Nothin’ But” bars were a hit, at local cafes, farmers’ markets and gyms. Yet as a solo entrepreneur, she could not take advantage of their surging popularity.

Around that time, Steve Laitmon tried a bar at Doc’s — the old Saugatuck coffee shop. Impressed he stepped into the parking lot, found Graham’s number and called her.

An attorney who also owns the Calendar Group — a Westport-based staffing firm for high net worth individuals and families — Laitmon asked where Nothin’ But was sold besides Doc’s. She was in the farmers’ market, a couple of gyms and cafes, and Arogya.

Jerri Graham and Steve Laitmon.

Jerri Graham and Steve Laitmon.

Laitmon went door-to-door — literally — expanding the market. His 1st target: the Hamptons. He was successful — and so were Graham’s bars.

A few years later, Nothin’ But is now sold in a couple of thousand outlets. Costco and Whole Foods carry them, in 3 regions each. Hudson News sells them nationally. In March, they’ll be at 7/Eleven.

Last year, the company grew by 300%. Sales are in the low 7 figures.

Laitmon did it by old-fashioned pavement pounding. He also brought in a vice president of sales, a sales assistant and an operations guy. That’s it, though. Nothin’ But is nothin’ but them.

Success comes from the product itself, Laitmon says. “We’re taste-driven, with clean ingredients. Nothing artificial. No garbage.”

Right now there are 4 granola bar flavors, and 4 types of cookies. The Nothin’ But brand has plenty of potential, Laitmon notes. But they’re solidifying their current offerings, before expanding.

Nothin' But

Speaking of expansion: Nothin’ But’s offices just moved from Westport to Stratford. The company needed a loading dock — and that’s hard to find here.

Doc’s — where Laitmon made that 1st phone call to Graham — is no longer around. But Nothin’ But bars are.

Thanks to that Westport connection, they’re more popular than ever. And all over the country.

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Posted in Environment, Local business, People

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One Store Closes, Another Opens

Posted on November 20, 2011 | 11 comments

If you wanted to see the changing face of Saugatuck, yesterday was the day.

On her final day in business, Doc’s Café owner Yvonne Dougherty threw a party for her many customers friends.

There was good food, her classic Sledgehammer coffee (and wine), plus plenty of what-am-I-going-to-do-now lamentations from folks who have come in every day — “literally,” one said — since she opened her converted-garage doors on September 11, 2000.

Fans of all ages flocked to Doc's on its final day.

“As cheesy or clichéd as this may sound,” Yvonne wrote in a farewell letter,

you’ve become like family to me.  While discovering what kind of milk you prefer in your latte and the variety and quantity of sweetener, I’ve also learned about you.  I’ve learned about your families and your careers.

You’ve shared with me your successes and your hardships.  In return, you’ve learned an awful lot about me — perhaps, at times, to the chagrin of my 3 children (all former Doc’s employees at one time or another) and my husband (the man who truly made this dream possible).

Yvonne promises to open a new incarnation of Doc’s — somewhere — “very soon.”

Meanwhile, across the street — literally — Saugatuck Craft Butchery threw a welcome-to-the-neighborhood party for itself.  They’re the newest shop to open in the first phase of the Saugatuck retail/residential/office redevelopment — the same project that, in its next phase, will demolish the building housing the now-former Doc’s, among others.

The crew and customers are all smiles at Saugatuck Craft Butchery.

I’m not much of a red meat eater, but the spiced hamburgers that were free for the sampling were — literally — the best burgers I’ve ever tasted.  That includes Shake Shack — and Big Top.

The plaza by the river was rockin’.  There was music, food, and an old-fashioned, meet-your-neighbors vibe.  It’s exactly what the developers of Saugatuck envisioned several years ago — but it was exactly the type of friendly, funky place Doc’s already was.

Thanks for the memories, Yvonne.  We hope you’ll resurface somewhere, soon.

Thanks for coming, Saugatuck Craft Butchery.  We hope you’ll be here a long time, as the area grows and thrives around you.

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Posted in Local business, People, Saugatuck

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Nothin’ But Snack Bars

Posted on July 23, 2011 | 9 comments

Most people don’t make a connection between poison ivy and muffins.

Then again, most people are not Jerri Graham.

She and her daughter had recently moved to Westport from Taiwan.  Jeri got a job at Greenwood Press — and a bad case of poison ivy.

Prednisone “made me crazy,” she recalls.  She started baking muffins — lots of them.  Soon her creations — including a delicious “Westport Morning Muffin” with flax seed, whole wheat flour, fruits and vegetables — were being sold at Doc’s.

Jeri envisioned a muffin delivery service that would “revolutionize breakfast around the world.”

Then she ate a supermarket granola bar.  It was nothing but oats, and a few “well-calculated” pieces of nuts and dried fruit.

That was Jerri’s aha! moment.

“I’d been duped,” she recalls.  “There was no flavor.”

Jerri Graham at Christie's Farmer's Market. (Photo by Lynn U. Miller)

Oats, she says, “are a blank canvas.  You can add anything to them” — nuts, seeds, fruits, spices.  There is no limit to creativity.

“If you pair almonds with cherries, that’s different than if you use cashews or pecans,” she says.  “My brain is constantly spinning with possibilities.”

She started making the kind of bars she wanted, for herself and her daughter.

She shared them.  Today she makes 62 varieties of snack bars.  And counting.

Jerri says the reaction to her bars has been “incredibly positive.  People are excited by all the different tastes and textures.  They’re tired of being tricked.”

Nothin’ But — as in “nothin’ but the best real snacks available” — are baked in a Post Road caterer’s kitchen.  They’re sold at Doc’s, Double L Market, Arogya, Cocoa Michelle, and 2 farmer’s markets (Thursdays at the Imperial Avenue lot, Sundays at Christie’s).

They’re also available at the Norwalk-Rowayton, Brickwalk and Greenfield Hill farmer’s markets.

Soon you can buy them at Yura in New York City, and Golden Pear in the Hamptons.

But not at Stop & Shop.

“Everyone’s trying to be the next Bear Naked,” she says, of the Fairfield County granola mega-succes story.

“I don’t want to follow that path.  We’d go to Dean & Deluca-type stores — if we ever did those at all.”

Jerri’s mission is to “change snacking.  America does not need to run on Dunkin’.

“Convenience stores sell snack bars, but they’re right next to cigarettes and Oreos.  That’s not the impact I want.  Almonds are better for you than butter cream.”

For now, Jerri’s goal is to “stay focused.”  The 1-woman operation is ready to hire people.

Meanwhile, she’s working on a blueberry-based “brain bar.”  A percentage of sales will go to Alzheimer’s research.

“If you don’t have a reason for what you’re doing, there’s no reason to do it,” she says.

And then she’s off to the kitchen, to make the donuts snack bars.

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Posted in Local business, People

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